India recognised key market for global car makers: Ratan Tata

New Delhi: As global automobile giants on Tuesday unveiled their concept small cars here, Tata Group Chairman, who pioneered Nano, said the India has been recognised as an important market the worldover.

Tata, who created a revolution by launching the Rs 1-lakh Nano, said the small car segment is becoming competitive, which shows "Indian market has now been recognised as an important market worldover ...."

He was speaking at the CNBC-Overdrive award function, where Nano was recognised as the "Car of the year."

The awards were given away by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

Tata said the year 2010 would be better for the Indian car industry than the previous year and customers would have more choice in the competitive market.

"We hope to be there and hopefully as the year goes by we will give more excitement (to customers)," he said.

Big car makers, including Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen, on Tuesday showcased their small cars here on the first day of the week-long 10th Auto Expo.

Tata Motors MD Ravi Kant while sharing the optimism said for the commercial vehicles a lot would depend on how the infrastructure sector plays out. He also demanded that the government should continue with the fiscal stimulus, which provided major benefit to the commercial vehicles segment.

"Government should invest very heavily on infrastructure particularly roads and they should continue with the stimulus," Kant said.